Friday, October 19, 2012

Yesterday I got up at 4:30 a.m., and I didn’t mind one bit. Why? Because I was catching an early train to NYC to see a taping of The Chew! I can't even describe how much fun it was!!!!!!!!!!
The episode aired today, and was an Extra Value Friday show on sandwiches. If you watched the episode and blinked, you probably missed us!

Playing "Sandwich or Scamwich". I got all three right!! (Mom didn't - ha ha!!)

The guest was Emeril Lagasse and he cooked an incredible looking Chicken and Biscuit sandwich. On Extra Value Fridays they always tell you how much the food costs per serving, and my Mom leaned over and whispered to me “They should tell us how many calories are in it!” To which I replied “I’d rather know how many carbs”.

I had the same thought later when they sliced up the sandwich from the beginning of the show and passed pieces out to us.

How many carbs are in this huge sandwich??

I love to cook and bake. I like to make things from scratch as much as possible, rather than eating pre-packaged foods. But I have to admit, I do enjoy the ease of consulting the nutrition label on pre-packaged foods when counting up my carbs. It sure would make life easier if any recipe I used came with nutrition information so I could easily dose my insulin for my home-cooked meals.

In the end, I made a conservative guess on the carbs in the sandwich slice they served us because I knew we’d be doing a lot of walking around New York after the taping, and my blood sugar was a happy 80 when I tested later. When I’m feeling ambitious at home, I can type my ingredients into Calorie King and do some mega-math to determine the carbs in what I’m cooking or baking. But often I just end up swagging it. (As in “Scientific Wild Ass Guess”)

I asked Clinton Kelly what the carb count was, and he was stumped.
(Just kidding - although if I did ask I'm sure he would've tried to help!!)

How do you tally the carbs in things you make from scratch?? Got any great carb counting tips to share?

12 comments:

I mostly SWAG it - But I do try and calculate how many carbs a certain ingredients ( like potatoes or rice,) and then divide that by the number of servings. But that usually leads to massive confusion and then I just say "SCREW IT" & go back to SWAGGING.

Oh this is soooo cool! As I type, I'm swagging my way through a recipe for bread made with almond flour. I am attempting to make lower carb homemade bread. this could be a complete flop but I wanted to try it. I plan to blog about it when it's done. I use Calorie Count and/or Spark Recipe calculator but sometimes they don't have the more exotic ingredients.

I use Excel. I have a main a spreadsheet with a list of common foods that I use – I was once dubbed the spreadsheet queen! I make a new spreadsheet for a particular recipe and copy the items I need to that one. My main sheet is set up with a column with calories, carbs and other nutrition info based on a particular serving size. Then I put a serving size in and have it calculate everything. If it was based on one cup of flour and I needed 2 or ½, then it would calculate based on that. At the bottom, I total each column then divide by the number of servings I cut it into.

It was a pain in the beginning to keep adding new foods, but once they are there, then it isn’t as hard to use. I check periodically because if you use a different brand, it can vary slightly.

I just take a look, figure out how much space it takes up as compared to an ordinary slice of bread, and make an educated guess. Then I add about 20%, because experience has proven that my guess is usually way too low.

I Am . . .

Karen Graffeo

I'm a Knitter living with Type 1 Diabetes. I'm not a medical professional nor am I giving medical advice - I'm just a girl sharing my personal thoughts and experiences with diabetes. I live in New England with my wonderful husband, my adorable cat, and lots and lots of yarn.